canoe off the sand and jumping over the stern, and he proposed to do the same thing, because he was used to canoes himself. Against the cautions of the owner he did shove off and jump, but he did not alight in the canoe. That elfish little piece of Indian deviltry was not there when he arrived; it slipped out from under him, sidewise, and with a spring which jumped it almost clear of the water it sailed away before the wind, while the canoeist went headfirst into six or eight feet of water, silk hat, good clothes and all, amid the howls of delight from the passengers on the steamer who had been watching him. He was game, however, and admitted that he had never imagined just how light and ticklish a birch-bark was; nor how much science it required to jump squarely over the stern of such a fragile creation and maintain one's balance. Woodmen and canoeists familiar with "birches" will understand just how small a deviation is required to bring discomfiture. A little carelessness on the part of an old hand is often just as fatal as a little ignorance on the part of the tenderfoot.

But I digress. On the trip concerning which I started to tell, my brother and I had been down to the Indian village and were on our way home. When we emerged from Trudell Slough we found a gale blowing from the south, against the current of the river, and great combing waves were running, through which it seemed impossible to ride in our little boats. However, we had to cross the river in order to get home, and we did not long debate the question. Being the oldest I took the lead, Sam following. He was but eleven years old, and had a boat all by himself to manage in that sea. But he could paddle a canoe as well as any Indian boy. I also could paddle, and being older, nearly fourteen, was supposed to have the wisdom of the ages in the matter of judgment in meeting and riding combers.

Under these conditions, I started out to make the crossing. My brother has told me since that he never thought of any danger to himself; but he figured, a dozen times, that I was gone—in fact he lost three or four good bets that I would not come up again after going down out of sight. My canoe would go down into the trough of the sea at the same time that his did, thus he would lose track of me. He had to keep his eyes on the "combers" and meet them at just the right angle, or he himself would have been the "goner". Sometimes he would not locate me until he had met three or four big ones. Then he would rise over the tops of the waves at the same time and would be able to reassure himself that I was still right side up and paddling for life, and that he was out another bet. I do not know that I thought of the danger at all, as I simply had my canoe to look out for. Had Sam been in front I would have realized, as he did, that we were taking lots of chances, and would have learned from the diving of his craft just how great the danger really was, as he did. We shipped a good deal of water—that is, a good deal for the amount we could afford to take in and maintain any margin between the gunwales of our canoes and the water outside. Before we got across we were sitting in several inches of water, but a little baling cleared this out as soon as we reached the Wisconsin side, and we proceeded up the river, hugging the shore and keeping in the eddies and under the points, without further adventures. I do not think we mentioned the crossing as anything to brag of, as under the circumstances any of the boys would have done the same thing in the same way.

One other incident in which the little canoe figured, involved the closest call to drowning I ever had as a boy. Again I was out with my brother, some ten miles down the river, near Diamond Bluff, fishing and scouting about in the customary manner. Sam was ahead of me, and had landed on a pile of driftwood lodged against a giant cottonwood which had been undermined by the eating away of the river bank. In falling, one or more of its branches had been so deeply driven into the bottom of the river that it held at right angles with the current, extending out fifty feet or more into the channel. Against this obstruction all sorts of logs, lumber, and other drift had lodged, forming a large raft. My brother had run in under the lower side of this and climbed out, preparatory to dropping his line for fish. I, doubtless carelessly, drifted down toward the upper side. One of the limbs which did not quite reach the surface so as to be seen, caught my little vessel and in an instant I was in the water, and under the raft. I thought I was surely gone, for I supposed that the driftwood was deep enough to catch and hold me. I had presence of mind enough left, however, to do the only thing which was left—dive as deeply as possible, and with open eyes steer clear of the many branches through which I had to find my way toward the open water on the lee side of the raft. Sam ran to the lower side to catch me if I came up—an expectation which he had little hope of realizing, thinking as I did that I would be caught like a rat in a trap, and never come up until dug out. Fortunately the drift was not deep, and the limbs not very close together, and I popped up as I cleared the last log, but with so little breath left that another ten feet would have drowned me. Sam caught me by the hand and "yanked" me out on the drift, where I lay and took in air for some minutes to fill out my collapsed lungs. In another ten minutes we were fishing as if nothing had happened.

In these upsets which we were almost daily experiencing, our costumes played an important though passive part. The entire uniform of the average river lad of those days consisted of a pair of blue jean trousers, a calico shirt, a home-made straw hat, and sometimes a pair of "galluses". The last named item indicated an extravagant expenditure; one "gallus" was ample for all practical purposes; the second represented luxury and wanton extravagance. With such a costume a boy in the water was practically unhampered, and could and did swim with all the freedom of an unclothed cupid. One of the customary relaxations of the Prescott boys was to run down Orange Street when school "let out", in single file, dressed as above described, hats and all, and dive from the ledge of rocks fifteen feet high into water forty feet deep.

It was on one of these excursions that I had the only real scare of my life. This may sound like braggadocio, but it is a fact. I have been in places since that time, where I thought death imminent, and knew that it was possible, if not probable, at any moment; but in such situations I have more or less successfully been able to conceal the fact of fear. In the case in question I did not attempt to conceal from myself the fact that I was sincerely alarmed.

We had, late in the autumn, landed at a desolate coulee several miles below Prescott. I had gone back about half a mile from the river, on to the prairie, leaving my brother at the canoe. Suddenly I heard the long-drawn hunting cry of a wolf. Looking in the direction of the sound I saw a big grey timber wolf loping toward me with the speed of a race horse. His cries were answered from a distance, and then I saw six other big wolves bounding over the prairie after me.

I looked around for some place of safety and saw at some distance—a good deal less than a quarter of a mile, as I know it now, but it looked all of that at the time—a small burr oak, the only tree near enough to be available in this crisis. I knew enough about the big timber wolves to know that I would instantly be in ribbons after they were upon me. One alone might be kept off; but seven would have the courage of numbers, and would make short work of a single boy. Then I was scared. I could actually feel every hair upon my head standing straight on end, as stiff as Hamlet's "quills upon the fretful porcupine". It has been worth all